Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Natalman, and this is Psychoactive, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the show
Speaker 1: where we talk about all things drugs. But any views
Speaker 1: expressed here do not represent those of iHeart Media, Protozoa Pictures,
Speaker 1: or their executives and employees. Indeed, heed, as an inveterate contrarian,
Speaker 1: I can tell you they may not even represent my own.
Speaker 1: And nothing contained in this show should be used as
Speaker 1: medical advice or encouragement to use any type of drug. Hello,
Speaker 1: Psychoactive listeners. Today's guest is Sineon Schnapper. He is the
Speaker 1: co founder and director of the j l S Fund,
Speaker 1: which is one of the more significant investment funds placing
Speaker 1: bets basically and learning the whole field of psychedelics, innovation
Speaker 1: and psychedelics business. I said, say, I just met Simeon,
Speaker 1: and interestingly enough, through another guest of Psychoactive. It was
Speaker 1: Leonard Picard, who some of you may have listened to.
Speaker 1: He was in town, we were getting to know one
Speaker 1: another and then he brings me over to meet his
Speaker 1: buddy Simeon Snapper, and we hit it off and so
Speaker 1: full disclosure, Uh, you know, after hitting it off, he
Speaker 1: asked me to be an advisor to this fund, so
Speaker 1: I had a you know, full disclosure, I'm an advisor
Speaker 1: to Simeon's Jails fund, and one of the one of
Speaker 1: the implications of that is that if it does well,
Speaker 1: I'll make some money as a result. Um. But also
Speaker 1: as a result, I've enjoyed getting to know him and
Speaker 1: really coming to appreciate the extent to which he is respected,
Speaker 1: admired and liked in this psychedelics area. And he's also
Speaker 1: one of the people on the investment side who's been
Speaker 1: involved in this space, not just investment but psychedelics for
Speaker 1: quite a long time. So Simeon, welcome, Thank you so much. Ethan. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, we we recently crossed paths at uh this
Speaker 1: wonderful conference in New York called the Horizons Conference. I mean,
Speaker 1: actually the month before that we were down in Miami
Speaker 1: at the Miami Wonderland Conference on in Business, which was
Speaker 1: a more heavily business one. Horizons goes back, you know,
Speaker 1: fourteen years. I think I spoke at the first one
Speaker 1: of their conference in New York back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven. But it's really growing in leaps and bounds,
Speaker 1: and there was this incredible energy going on, and and
Speaker 1: there is truly a psychedelic renaissance underway right now. And
Speaker 1: why do you think it's happening now? Um, There's so
Speaker 1: many ways to answer it, but the default is kind
Speaker 1: of the conflation of you know, three major things happening.
Speaker 1: You have, you know, regulatory stuff from the f d
Speaker 1: A with breakthrough designation. You have the decriminalization of psycho
Speaker 1: alex and or even the legalization. You have a velocity
Speaker 1: of research coming out of universities, etcetera, etcetera. And this
Speaker 1: is all being powered fueled by you know, what we
Speaker 1: call generating alpha, which is money and the energy of money.
Speaker 1: So it's really this perfect fire that's, in our opinion,
Speaker 1: creating this renaissance. You know, I've mentioned on Psychoactive many
Speaker 1: times my friend Rick Doblin, who founded MAPS back in
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen eighties and has just been the trooper
Speaker 1: building this thing in an incredible way. And for so
Speaker 1: long it was all about philanthropic contributions, just as I
Speaker 1: rely on philathropic contributions to build Drug Policy Alliance and uh,
Speaker 1: you know and run the ballot initiatives and all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. But now there's this remarkable infusion of funding.
Speaker 1: I think more a lot on the philanthropic side, but
Speaker 1: that's now I think being sort of dwarfed on the
Speaker 1: investment side. Yes, it is, and it's it's very delicate too.
Speaker 1: I mean there's the pure play you know, venture capitalists
Speaker 1: or private equity or just investor on the money side,
Speaker 1: and then there's how do you invest into psychedelics. But
Speaker 1: for me, it's always been this interesting dance between the
Speaker 1: drug world and the the energy in the world of money.
Speaker 1: I can imagine it's a fascinating well. I mean, right now,
Speaker 1: I see there's some companies that have gone public that
Speaker 1: I have billion dollar valuations on the market. Are we
Speaker 1: going to see many more companies going that way and
Speaker 1: many more billion billion dollar valuations? Easily? I think you're
Speaker 1: gonna see a lot of news and you know, this
Speaker 1: first quarter of two you're also going to see a
Speaker 1: shift probably from mental health to you know, everything in
Speaker 1: central nervous system and anything that's inflammation from Alzheimer's to Parkinson's, uh, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But for right now, you're definitely seeing the bunch of
Speaker 1: companies going public and attaining you know what people call
Speaker 1: you know, unicorn status, that billion dollar plusvaluation on senior exchanges.
Speaker 1: For me, it's, you know, it's exciting. It's to some extent,
Speaker 1: something I've been waiting for for you know, a few decades.
Speaker 1: I've always loved starting something new, and I've always loved,
Speaker 1: if done intelligently and done ethically, how provocative and important
Speaker 1: money could be to help move the needle. And then
Speaker 1: of course I've always loved the substances. So it's an
Speaker 1: exciting time for this all to be uh kind of
Speaker 1: colliding if you will. Yeah, well, let's break it down
Speaker 1: for our audience then. So, I mean there was MAPS
Speaker 1: that was out there first and real true pioneer Rick
Speaker 1: Doblin and his colleagues raising tensive millions of dollars to
Speaker 1: move forward with studies on using M D M A
Speaker 1: a K ecstasy to treat PTSD, And they've been moving
Speaker 1: that process through the FDA for many years and there's
Speaker 1: a possibility they think it's quite likely in fact, that
Speaker 1: the FDA will give a green light, uh two years
Speaker 1: from now for this to be basically allowed for doctors
Speaker 1: to prescribe UM. But MAPS was always involved in, you know,
Speaker 1: doing everything from philanthropists, and now they've created a public
Speaker 1: benefit corporation, basically a for profit corporation owned by the
Speaker 1: nonprofit organization. They've just made a deal with you know,
Speaker 1: a major investor and I think seventy billion dollars to
Speaker 1: help finish this off. UM. So I you know, and
Speaker 1: I know Rick Doblin has been worried about the role
Speaker 1: of money emerging too quickly in this space, but he
Speaker 1: also sees it as essential. Do you have worries? I
Speaker 1: think worry would be too strong, but concern. I could,
Speaker 1: you know, to some great extent empathize though with Rick, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was all this progress for decades purely philanthropically, um,
Speaker 1: and then something shifted, you know, about three years ago
Speaker 1: with the kind of this opening of wait, these are
Speaker 1: really important molecules and there's really important science going on,
Speaker 1: and is this at a capital markets opportunity? So I
Speaker 1: could definitely empathize with Rick and others who have done
Speaker 1: such an amazing job of raising capital or getting the
Speaker 1: donors to get m d M A where it is.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of other molecules and other indications,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think it just kind of got
Speaker 1: to this point where it's like, Okay, maybe we can
Speaker 1: do something unique. Yeah, you know. You know, Rick talks
Speaker 1: about having in some respects's been a victim of his
Speaker 1: own success in raising so much money moving this thing forward,
Speaker 1: and I can relate because, you know, forever and ever,
Speaker 1: in raising the money to legalize marijuana, first for medical
Speaker 1: purposes and then more broadly, it was entirely grounded in
Speaker 1: philanthropic contributions. And even in the last years I was
Speaker 1: doing this in fifteen sixteen, even when I could raise
Speaker 1: a little bit of money from folks in the marijuana industry,
Speaker 1: you know, it was always clear I would talk to
Speaker 1: those guys because they were stakeholders, but I would never
Speaker 1: try to raise money from them until after we had
Speaker 1: drafted the ballot initiatives. We didn't want them to have
Speaker 1: undo influence over it. And then once we won the
Speaker 1: California initiative in twenty sixteen, everybody saw it was like
Speaker 1: game over. Marijuana is going to be legalized across the country.
Speaker 1: And at that point, basically many of the philanthropists were saying,
Speaker 1: ethan at this point rely on the for profit guys.
Speaker 1: I've been giving you the money and getting my taxi
Speaker 1: or they couldn't get tax deductions for the ballot initiatives,
Speaker 1: but I've been doing it philanthropically, it doesn't really make
Speaker 1: any sense anymore. So I think Rick sometimes now find
Speaker 1: themselfs competing right to get philanthropic contributions when many of
Speaker 1: the rich guys who want to put this money in
Speaker 1: are saying, let me just invest the whole thing, you know,
Speaker 1: for profit. Why give away money when I could be
Speaker 1: just you know, getting a return on my investment very directly,
Speaker 1: It's a really difficult argument to win sometimes. And you know,
Speaker 1: maps and Rick is one of uh several in this
Speaker 1: space who you know, I've all either worked with personally
Speaker 1: or have known over the years, and I would is
Speaker 1: way off, like, you know, to two and a half
Speaker 1: years ago when we started you know, quote unquote deploying
Speaker 1: capital in the space. I thought this is gonna really
Speaker 1: benefit the nonprofits too, and I just I totally missed
Speaker 1: that because then I sat down with, you know, to
Speaker 1: your whole point, people who had been donors in the
Speaker 1: space for a long time, and I'm talking to them
Speaker 1: about our fund and our o eyes and you know,
Speaker 1: quote unquote making money as well as doing good, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them were like, well, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: If I'm investing and it's going to be the same outcome,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't I invest and get a return which I
Speaker 1: could donate to another industry or another area that isn't
Speaker 1: that far along um in integrating capital markets to solve
Speaker 1: a big problem. So it was a big like like really, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you see all these universities now being up
Speaker 1: with research institutes right or you know, or hostibly and
Speaker 1: why you land going in New York, Johns Hopkins, University
Speaker 1: of California, Imperial College in London. Uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: know this programs at Harvard and Yale and just more
Speaker 1: and more popping up, either into you know, a few
Speaker 1: a few researchers or sometimes entire projects. Uh. Are those
Speaker 1: being funded purely philanthropically or is it a mixed investment
Speaker 1: where the investors are going to have some profitability to
Speaker 1: be made from those investments. Yeah, it's definitely more of
Speaker 1: the ladder, and each of the ones you mentioned are
Speaker 1: unique and how they're structuring. I've definitely had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to participate on drafting of several and I've kind of
Speaker 1: watched certain ones evolve over the years, but generally UM.
Speaker 1: The bigger ones are contemplating an interdisciplinary approach where they're
Speaker 1: accessing everything the universities have to offer. So it's not
Speaker 1: just the chemistry. It's the political science, it's the anthropology,
Speaker 1: it's the math, it's the academic computing. So that benefits
Speaker 1: them from recruiting new students to just on the science
Speaker 1: side and the research side. There's always been I P
Speaker 1: and licensing deals out of universities. That's why some universities,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you really dig into the balance sheets,
Speaker 1: have these endowments that are massive. And a lot of
Speaker 1: those endowments was not just alumni donations or you know,
Speaker 1: they had antiquities from some bygone era that appreciated in value,
Speaker 1: but it was some of the deals that flowed into
Speaker 1: the university UM from various departments that had either had
Speaker 1: royalties or i P assignments with royalties, etcetera. So I'm
Speaker 1: watching a whole mess of universities and colleges kind of
Speaker 1: look at this and say, wait, if A, B and
Speaker 1: C are doing it, why aren't we setting up a
Speaker 1: psychedelic institute. And I had a call from a provost
Speaker 1: even a month ago, and this is from a community
Speaker 1: college they don't even have a chemistry and re church department.
Speaker 1: And he's like, Hey, what do you know about this,
Speaker 1: uh this institute thing? Should we do one of those?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, and I just was like, what is happening? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I see me. I'll tell you a funny
Speaker 1: story about that. Rick called me last year, a year
Speaker 1: and a half ago, and he wanted me to introduce
Speaker 1: him to Kurt Smoke. Now, Kurt Smoke was the mayor
Speaker 1: of Baltimore in the late eighties. Uh, and he was
Speaker 1: the one who surprised everybody by calling for a major
Speaker 1: reconsideration the drug war and drug prohibition at the same
Speaker 1: time that I was a young assistant professor Princeton making
Speaker 1: similar arguments. And he and I became the kind of
Speaker 1: you know, the Baltimore mayor and the Princeton professor making
Speaker 1: these arguments. And then he moved on from being mayor,
Speaker 1: you know, he became the protost I think at Howard University,
Speaker 1: and now he's the president of the University of Baltimore,
Speaker 1: which is basically the City College of Baltimore. And Rick
Speaker 1: wanted to meet him because the guy who founded Go Daddy,
Speaker 1: he actually was interested in the issue of veterans and
Speaker 1: veterans mental health and psychelics research and d m A.
Speaker 1: And he I think was one of the biggest donors
Speaker 1: of University of Baltimore, and so it was all about
Speaker 1: saying whether this local college, University of Baltimore, could begin
Speaker 1: to have a little psychedelics you know, research component to it.
Speaker 1: So I think you're exactly right. It's not just the
Speaker 1: major institutions, you know, it's a whole bunch of others.
Speaker 1: Let's take a break here and go to an ad. Now,
Speaker 1: let's just step back for a second. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of the focus right now is on M d
Speaker 1: M A getting approved with maps effort by the f
Speaker 1: d A. And the other one that everybody talks about
Speaker 1: is this company called Compass, started by the Goldsmiths um
Speaker 1: which also now has a billion dollar plus valuation in
Speaker 1: the markets, which is looking at psilocybin I think, to
Speaker 1: treat depression, right, And that's the other one that people
Speaker 1: are optimistic will be approved by the FDA in coming years.
Speaker 1: And so what else is on the horizon in terms
Speaker 1: of potential treatments or companies that look to be third, fourth,
Speaker 1: and fifth in this place, or is that the sixty
Speaker 1: four dollar question for you as an investor in all
Speaker 1: of this. Yeah, I would say it's a sixty three
Speaker 1: thousand dollar question because there's no it's not a matter
Speaker 1: of um of if you know from our thesis, it's
Speaker 1: a matter of when. So whether it's if we're just
Speaker 1: talking at the molecular level, you know, M d M
Speaker 1: A versus psilocybin versus five M e O d M
Speaker 1: T versus LSD. There's so many studies happening right now,
Speaker 1: and there's so much promise that it's really going to
Speaker 1: be based on the teams that are able to execute faster.
Speaker 1: Just to back up for seconds, So for our listeners,
Speaker 1: when Seeming is referring to a psilocybin, he's talking about
Speaker 1: the key ingredient in mushrooms, psilocypic mushrooms. And when he's
Speaker 1: talking about five M e O d MT, that's something
Speaker 1: that's oftentimes associated with the toad from the Sonoran desert um.
Speaker 1: But also it can be produced synthetically, as can be
Speaker 1: mess s goal in, which is a key ingredient in
Speaker 1: peyote or in san pedro. So those are the substance
Speaker 1: we're talking about, but just to stick for a moment,
Speaker 1: simeon on this research f d A route. Um do
Speaker 1: you I mean if you had a bet like, are
Speaker 1: what are going to be the next substances or molecules
Speaker 1: for which types of mental health conditions? You have the molecule,
Speaker 1: the indication, and where they're at on the f d
Speaker 1: A path. So m d m A is tied right
Speaker 1: now to the indication of post traumatic stress disorder, and
Speaker 1: that's very close to being approved right it's in its
Speaker 1: second clinical trial phase three. You have psilocybin or the
Speaker 1: mushroom you'd reference compass in a phase two around the
Speaker 1: indication of treatment resistant depression. So something might not go through.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of drugs that you know, don't even
Speaker 1: get to a phase one that are pre clinical. There's
Speaker 1: drugs that get the phase two and then and then fail. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's not a d and indicative, but it's a
Speaker 1: good it's a good guess. It's a good barometer. So
Speaker 1: when m DAMA gets approved for treating PTSD, at that
Speaker 1: point it may have a more rapid progress in terms
Speaker 1: of being used to treat other medical conditions, whether it's
Speaker 1: an eating disorder or whether it's a range of other things,
Speaker 1: and ditto for psilocybin, which Compass is moving forward with now. Right,
Speaker 1: So you have those sorts of things, then you have,
Speaker 1: you know, the question about whether something like LSD, which
Speaker 1: I understand a lot of researchers don't do as much
Speaker 1: with in part because it's a much longer experience and
Speaker 1: therefore the time of the therapist, you know, is you know,
Speaker 1: that costs a lot more and because LSD still has
Speaker 1: a negative association in the public and the political mind.
Speaker 1: Um that mesclan is a possibility, that I begins a possibility. Um,
Speaker 1: But that in addition, there are these companies creating new molecules, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, creating variants on each of these drugs that
Speaker 1: they hope will have more upside and us downside. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people are basing this on
Speaker 1: the you know, the odd few dozen you know, classical psychedelics,
Speaker 1: and it's very interesting. Some companies are viewing it through
Speaker 1: the perspective and we can make these better because it's
Speaker 1: the right thing to do. Other companies are viewing if
Speaker 1: we can make these not necessarily better, but different, so
Speaker 1: that we can you know, turn more patients through the
Speaker 1: door every day. UM, there's definitely a trend to you know,
Speaker 1: for me at least, who has been you know, a
Speaker 1: long time psycho Nott and have you know, played in
Speaker 1: a lot of UM, a lot of different intersections of
Speaker 1: this space. UM. I've always appreciated the catharsis of you know,
Speaker 1: an actual therapeutic trip. And there's a lot of narratives
Speaker 1: right now that are like the hallucination the trip confronting
Speaker 1: yourself is a side effect, and let's eliminate that altogether,
Speaker 1: presuming that we could have the same effect simply by
Speaker 1: um creating the same levels of neuro plasticity and brain
Speaker 1: chemistry that will quote unquote solve that indication. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess most creating compounds where you don't get nauseous,
Speaker 1: or they last less time or things like that. Right
Speaker 1: certainly in the fungi world, I mean we've looked at
Speaker 1: I mean, mushrooms are and it's it's its own universe.
Speaker 1: They're so amazing in general, but you could find a
Speaker 1: strain of soelocity and depending on how you cultivate it,
Speaker 1: eliminate the nausea from the whole effect which has been
Speaker 1: there you know previously or commonly and the same thing
Speaker 1: obviously can be done at the synthetic level depending on
Speaker 1: what molecules you're looking at, So you know, to heach
Speaker 1: his own on the on the side effect or uh
Speaker 1: creating something new that's that's better or um faster or cheaper.
Speaker 1: And when you look at all the potential mental health
Speaker 1: conditions that are out there, what are some of the
Speaker 1: other ones? Yeah, the answer is limited by the human
Speaker 1: condition in but you know, the next top ten, Like
Speaker 1: we're looking at a lot of invested in companies focusing
Speaker 1: on traumatic brain injury as an example, UM, any range
Speaker 1: of eating disorders, of which there's you know, hundreds, and
Speaker 1: there's nuances in each of those hundreds that are different. UM.
Speaker 1: Obviously anything in in depression from treatment resistant to m
Speaker 1: d D too. You know, generalized anxiety disorder or social
Speaker 1: anxiety disorder, which you know, I look at those indications
Speaker 1: and they're very nuanced and very complex. But if I
Speaker 1: look at you know, a DSM manual like so many
Speaker 1: of those, at least in the UH generalized anything anxiety disorder,
Speaker 1: it is like, oh my god, that's was my last
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. Oh my god, wait, that's been my
Speaker 1: last ten years. It's so pervasive. So you know, it
Speaker 1: was a bit tongue in cheek. The the amount of
Speaker 1: indications are only limited by the human condition at least
Speaker 1: where we're at right now as a specie. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot out there well so, so some of the
Speaker 1: money has got to be made by patenting these new molecules,
Speaker 1: right And I've heard Compass, you know, which is now
Speaker 1: the biggest in the companies right now, um taking some
Speaker 1: real flak for being overly aggressive in trying to claim
Speaker 1: patents on things that they should not rightfully be trying
Speaker 1: to patent and own. And you know their responses, Hey,
Speaker 1: that's just the way people operating the patent world. But
Speaker 1: people in the side else world are saying, we're trying
Speaker 1: to do something different here, like cut that ship out.
Speaker 1: What's your take on that? Yeah, I think that. I
Speaker 1: think I'm more in the camp of cut that ship out, um.
Speaker 1: And there's definitely been responses from leadership of we're going
Speaker 1: to cut that ship out. Um. Time will tell how
Speaker 1: true that is. I also know, you know, from other industries,
Speaker 1: from tech, from education, like patents are the path. It's
Speaker 1: it's how the system works. And it gets really hard
Speaker 1: to like like what are we trying to do? Are
Speaker 1: we trying to heal people and create greater patient outcomes?
Speaker 1: And the answer I think is yes to all that.
Speaker 1: But then the bigger question comes as the system broken
Speaker 1: or is there a way to fix the underlying system?
Speaker 1: By the system, you mean patents or you mean the
Speaker 1: broader you know, nature of capitalism and capital markets, patents,
Speaker 1: the US health care system, capitalism in general. Right, it's like,
Speaker 1: we know it's not the best, and I'm not necessarily
Speaker 1: resolving to say, well, it's what we have, because we're
Speaker 1: always evolving, we're always iterating in civilization and certainly democracies
Speaker 1: or governments or laws and rules. But I've definitely heard
Speaker 1: and been disappointed that they didn't have a greater solution
Speaker 1: when somebody's like, there's a better way to do this,
Speaker 1: Like why would you invest in a company that's trying
Speaker 1: to pat molecules? And I'm like, well, if they're new molecules,
Speaker 1: it should be because that's a system and it drives
Speaker 1: innovation and it protects, you know, the people who are
Speaker 1: in some cases working years and years and years on
Speaker 1: something molecular that they think is unique. Um, how else
Speaker 1: will they be protected if not by a patent. I see. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're getting in the weeds here is seeming at
Speaker 1: this point I just gotta drop back because I I
Speaker 1: hope our audience is fully engaged here. But you know,
Speaker 1: when you and I met, you know, you told me
Speaker 1: a little your past, and then I have listened to
Speaker 1: you speaking in other places, and so you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: just hear you. I mean my understand as you grew
Speaker 1: up in Chicago, but at the front end, when you're
Speaker 1: a little kid, you were following your Peace Corps volunteer
Speaker 1: parents around the world, and then your last years of
Speaker 1: high school, you know, you were in Ghana in West Africa,
Speaker 1: and then you spent a little time at the Maharishi
Speaker 1: University or whatever. But meanwhile, you know, tell me in
Speaker 1: the midst of all this, where you're you know, you
Speaker 1: also mentioned having read the classic book Robert Masters and
Speaker 1: Gene Houston's The Variety of Cyclic Experience. So so I mean, when,
Speaker 1: when when do you start doing the psychelics? Are you
Speaker 1: like a precocious thirteen year old doing it? Are you
Speaker 1: wait till you're in college? Or yeah? I was, I
Speaker 1: was really although I've I've never been accused of being precocious,
Speaker 1: but I guess that is the best word. God. It
Speaker 1: must have been like shortly after my bar mitzvah, and
Speaker 1: I didn't get this feeling of like now I'm a man,
Speaker 1: like this rite of passage, and I'm like, what else
Speaker 1: is there? And I remember ruffling through boxes in our
Speaker 1: basement in Roger's Park in Chicago. Um, and I found
Speaker 1: two books in my dad's collection. One was Ramdas is
Speaker 1: the only Dance there is and the other one was
Speaker 1: The Diatic Cyclone by John C. Lily. So I must
Speaker 1: have been, you know, um, thirteen and a half ish,
Speaker 1: and I read them and I was like, what the
Speaker 1: hell is this? You know, the Rabbi never told me
Speaker 1: any of this stuff. UM. And that kind of began
Speaker 1: the journey of just trying to read as much as possible.
Speaker 1: And then around fifteen six teen, I had the great
Speaker 1: fortune of meeting of meeting Robert Masters in gene Houston.
Speaker 1: They had become really dear friends with my best friend
Speaker 1: in the world. He passed away a while ago. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the beginning of Oh, there's actually psychedelic therapeutic
Speaker 1: protocols and you guys are playing with LSD in the Psyche.
Speaker 1: So yeah, my teen years it was um, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty full on. Um. Yeah, it's funny. I found Ah.
Speaker 1: I was up at my mom's in Michigan a few
Speaker 1: months ago and she said, uh, hey, sam My, you
Speaker 1: know there's there was some water damage in the basement,
Speaker 1: and go check out and see see what happened. And
Speaker 1: I came across the book uh and the journal from
Speaker 1: that time in history, So I was able to like
Speaker 1: flip through hundreds of pages of quote unquote experiments I
Speaker 1: was doing, um, you know, following uh, Bob and Jean's
Speaker 1: book and other books I had accumulated at that time, uh,
Speaker 1: with psychedelics. The other thing I found was a hard
Speaker 1: drive with a bunch of bitcoins that me and my
Speaker 1: older brother had and forgot about when we were buying
Speaker 1: bitcoins are under a buck to buy other things. It
Speaker 1: was a pleasant surprise. It was a very pleasant surprise.
Speaker 1: Did anyone experience really stand out here in these years
Speaker 1: that had some transformative impact or insight? Uh No, it's
Speaker 1: like they've all kind of conflated generally, in you know,
Speaker 1: the teen years, in the in the you know, the twenties,
Speaker 1: was a lot of ceremony. I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time in the Amazon. I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: and you know, wherever there was a forest culture or
Speaker 1: a culture that had medicine. Um. And then you know,
Speaker 1: personally just you know, tried everything. UM. So there's no
Speaker 1: one great experience or one one transformative experience. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like there were hundreds and they all had meaning
Speaker 1: in their own way. And I'm still working through it, um.
Speaker 1: And I'm still petrified each time I do a substance,
Speaker 1: even after all these years. But you know, also going
Speaker 1: back to your younger years, I mean, I know you
Speaker 1: were getting involved in tech, but as it's true of
Speaker 1: many people who maybe not about many, but at least
Speaker 1: some of the people involved in psychedelics and people involved
Speaker 1: in tech, many of them cut their teeth on entrepreneurship
Speaker 1: by doing things like selling weed or other drugs. Was
Speaker 1: that your story as well, seeing it? Yes, it was. Um.
Speaker 1: I was never you know, a drug dealer, but always
Speaker 1: helped facility. No, I guess I was. You know, I
Speaker 1: was selling like dying bags, and I always liked you know, cannabis,
Speaker 1: and I always liked you know, other molecules. It was
Speaker 1: never a full time thing. It was just like I
Speaker 1: had the ability to source and I had the ability
Speaker 1: to share, and sometimes I make some money on that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I guess technically in those early early early years. Um.
Speaker 1: It's funny though, because um, a family member maybe a
Speaker 1: year ago, he's like, I read this thing in the
Speaker 1: the paper. Is this this ecstasy and and helping vets?
Speaker 1: And I go yeah, and he's like is that what
Speaker 1: you do? And I'm like, that's exactly what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: And he's like, ah, I always thought you were just
Speaker 1: a drug dealer. Um, so now you're legitimate. Yes, yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: uh huh. Well let me ask you also. I remember
Speaker 1: you said when we first smith this past summer, you said,
Speaker 1: you know Ethan. You and I met before, and I
Speaker 1: think it was at one of the early MAPS conferences
Speaker 1: in San Jose and I think ten and then I
Speaker 1: don't know you were you were you? Did you have
Speaker 1: some table you're selling something back then? And and was
Speaker 1: there something you told me about running like a psycholics
Speaker 1: arts gallery and Venice Beach? How far back do you
Speaker 1: go with this Psychelics thing? Yeah, I mean at least
Speaker 1: on that that junk or I had opened the world's
Speaker 1: first psychedelic art gallery and medical marijuana dispensary in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight city. What were you doing with the
Speaker 1: psychedelic art gallery. Yeah, that was a I've always kind
Speaker 1: of liked new new things. So I had exited a
Speaker 1: company UM in Shanghai. I was living in Shanghai for
Speaker 1: seven years, and I was like, what's next. And I
Speaker 1: was kind of looking at California and my partners at
Speaker 1: the time we're like, hey man, there's this green rush
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, I like, I like that's a
Speaker 1: new business, that's a new area, and I like cannabis
Speaker 1: and UM. I also really like art. Let's kind of
Speaker 1: conflate the two UM and Yeah. So we opened the
Speaker 1: world's first psychedelic art gallery medical marijuana dispensary. We hosted God,
Speaker 1: I think we created like a dozen shows. Uh, We're
Speaker 1: able to drive a lot of money to all the
Speaker 1: nonprofits and psychedelics. I mean people would come in and cry.
Speaker 1: Like they would walk into the the gallery and they'd
Speaker 1: see the art, and then they'd walk into the dispensary
Speaker 1: side before they got to the backyard the Garden of Weeden,
Speaker 1: and they'd be like, I never thought this would happen
Speaker 1: in my lifetime. Um, I mean, little did they know
Speaker 1: we kind of It was a sketchy time in cannabis
Speaker 1: back then. From the FED side. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of raids happening. There was a lot of uncertainty. Um,
Speaker 1: a fellow dispensary down the way I was rated, they
Speaker 1: killed his dogs. They shot his dogs. It was just
Speaker 1: like it was just one of those things. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe the world isn't ready for this. It came to
Speaker 1: an end. Basically, I remember bringing everyone around a table,
Speaker 1: the staff, my partners, and asking from a show of hands,
Speaker 1: who wants to go to jail? And nobody raised their hand.
Speaker 1: So basically, uh, you know, shifted to delivery because at
Speaker 1: that time under prop to fifteen having a cannabis dispensary
Speaker 1: with sketchy but so many people over those years, you know,
Speaker 1: if they're not in jail, um are becoming public company CEOs,
Speaker 1: joining scientific advisory boards. There's just been a huge shift.
Speaker 1: So I really cherished those years then because it taught
Speaker 1: us so much and also, you know, we got to
Speaker 1: create this space that allowed people to talk openly about
Speaker 1: this just felt like a very different time. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: been thinking a lot now about the lessons and similar
Speaker 1: and differences between the way that marijuana legalization and the
Speaker 1: commercialization has evolved and how it's happening in psychedelics as well.
Speaker 1: And you know, you pointed out before that you know,
Speaker 1: obviously to some extent, when you see these decrim initiatives
Speaker 1: and legislation passing in places you know, first Denver, the
Speaker 1: Oakland or recently Detroit of the statewide one in Oregon,
Speaker 1: he's becoming models for elsewhere. There's sort of following the
Speaker 1: model that we pioneered with first medical marijuana, marijuana legalization,
Speaker 1: and then when you see the growing role of money
Speaker 1: coming in all albeit in some different ways. And so
Speaker 1: I'm curious. I mean, first of all, is there a
Speaker 1: fair bit of overlap or people who have been invested
Speaker 1: in the marijuana space playing in every bigger role in
Speaker 1: the psychelic space or is it still fairly separate, And
Speaker 1: if so, why, I think there's definitely crossover um from
Speaker 1: you know, I refer to them as cannabros, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's crypto bros and other bros. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: generalized archetype. But because of the success on the money
Speaker 1: side of the cannabis playbook, i e. You first go
Speaker 1: public in Canada, then you presume your uplist to a
Speaker 1: senior exchange NASDAC, New York Stock Exchange, etcetera. Cannabro saw
Speaker 1: that and saw psychedelics and I said, oh, this is
Speaker 1: gonna be the same. Some were good actors, many were not.
Speaker 1: Many were You know what you hear is pump and dumps.
Speaker 1: I think those have for the most part all been
Speaker 1: eliminated because people are saying that this is more than
Speaker 1: just the blip of a one time opportunity, that this
Speaker 1: is going to be a vibrant, huge industry. So that's
Speaker 1: one side, and there's definitely that camp, and there's still
Speaker 1: activity there. On the other side, where it's completely different,
Speaker 1: is more of a biotech pharma kinda side to it.
Speaker 1: FDA trials being able to be reimbursed by insurance, you know,
Speaker 1: tons of research and can we create the drug or
Speaker 1: can we create the system that allows us to build
Speaker 1: a patient um So you're kind of seeing both and
Speaker 1: it's shifting from month to month. I'm curious also whether
Speaker 1: there is synergy or a competition between the growing legal
Speaker 1: and legally commercialized markets. On the one hand and the
Speaker 1: underground and illicit markets. You know, the first I think
Speaker 1: major medical merill Wanna company was out of the UK,
Speaker 1: GW pharmaceutical And then fast forward to about ten years
Speaker 1: ago and g W Pharmaceuticals trying to get a approval
Speaker 1: for its medical marijuana medicine, which is a very good
Speaker 1: thing to treat, you know, a type of epileptic condition
Speaker 1: in children. Um, but they hire a former deputy drugs
Speaker 1: are in the Bush administration to lobby against the broader
Speaker 1: legalization of medical marijuana through the political process, and it's
Speaker 1: just remarkably offensive. And I even see in the you know,
Speaker 1: in the current world, you see people who are involved
Speaker 1: in the legal medical or you know, adult use marijuana
Speaker 1: markets basically pushing to ban homegrow of marijuana by individuals
Speaker 1: or to push for tougher sanctions. I'm definitely starting to
Speaker 1: see some of the same contentions happen around companies that
Speaker 1: have psilocybin as a part of their you know, quote
Speaker 1: unquote portfolio of i P that they're developing and watching,
Speaker 1: you know, not just Oregon, but other states. You know,
Speaker 1: go wait a minute, um, will psilocybin legal at the
Speaker 1: state level before it gets through an f D A
Speaker 1: Phase three trial, and what does that do for us?
Speaker 1: So it'll be very interesting in the same way you
Speaker 1: witness that with g W and their hiring practices, how
Speaker 1: companies who have psilocybin and their portfolio, how they're going
Speaker 1: to play that. When you and I first met, were
Speaker 1: sitting on your patio and I don't know if you
Speaker 1: offered me a join or not. You know, but you
Speaker 1: New York City and many other places you have these
Speaker 1: marijuana delivery services, and you pull out the menu of
Speaker 1: what had been a marijuanna delivery service, but now it's
Speaker 1: got six different types of not just you know, marijuana
Speaker 1: chocolate bars, but you know, mushroom chocolate bars, psilocybin chocolate bars,
Speaker 1: to C B, M, D M A, all sorts of
Speaker 1: other concoctions that it just seems this extraordinarily booming um
Speaker 1: black market in these products, which with which fortunately law
Speaker 1: enforcement doesn't seem overly concerned and we're not hearing much
Speaker 1: in the way of people really getting hurt, although that's
Speaker 1: a risk. But what's your perception of what's going on
Speaker 1: with respect to the illicit market and all these products. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's thriving. I mean not just similar to you know,
Speaker 1: cannabis is now you know, legal and the majority of
Speaker 1: the US, and the black markets even bigger. I think
Speaker 1: as it relates to, you know, just the delivery services
Speaker 1: in this city, and they're they're in every city, people
Speaker 1: started to say we should sell psychedelics too, and you know,
Speaker 1: I watched that because you know, I always keep a
Speaker 1: keen eye into the gray and black markets, right, because
Speaker 1: those are strong signals. It's in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: the zeitgeist, right. So yeah, a lot of these delivery
Speaker 1: services who were you know, doing pretty well selling cannabis
Speaker 1: illegally because you know, it wasn't legal in New York.
Speaker 1: UM said, well, if we're breaking the law anyway, and
Speaker 1: we can now sell micro dose mushroom caps at and
Speaker 1: margins and there's a demand for it, why wouldn't we.
Speaker 1: I think there was one I saw that in parentheses.
Speaker 1: It was for micro dose psilocybin type product and they
Speaker 1: were calling it Upper west Side zan X. I laughed,
Speaker 1: and it's like it was becoming so pervasive that, you know,
Speaker 1: the delivery service who was focusing on that area gave
Speaker 1: it the label and then I saw it and I
Speaker 1: was like, well, we were and I you know, I
Speaker 1: was like, how did you come up with that? I
Speaker 1: was like, well, we were thinking Upper West Side divorces,
Speaker 1: but then we learned they all take xan x and
Speaker 1: now they're taking micro dos psilocybin and they're off the
Speaker 1: xanax or other benzos, so we've just kept it Upper
Speaker 1: West Side zanex. So those are really really big signals. Well,
Speaker 1: you you mentioned Oregon before, right, I mean Oregon. You know,
Speaker 1: for our listeners may people who know that Oregon in
Speaker 1: past two ballot initiatives um each of them by about
Speaker 1: fifty six percent margins of victory. One was an old
Speaker 1: drug d krim one that basically embraced the Portugal model
Speaker 1: where you don't put people in jail for simple drug
Speaker 1: possession of anything. And that one was led by my organization,
Speaker 1: Drug Policy Alliance under my successors, together with locals and Oregon.
Speaker 1: The other one was the Oregon Psychelics Initiative, which you
Speaker 1: don't really shocked people on bypassing, and now there's a
Speaker 1: huge investment and making sure this gets implemented correctly. You know,
Speaker 1: the State of Oregon is set up a whole implementation
Speaker 1: board and agency. It's not just for medical therapeutic purposes
Speaker 1: in terms of curing you know, serious illness of PTSD.
Speaker 1: It's even for general wellness conditions. So you know, one
Speaker 1: can do it without having been diagnosed with any sort
Speaker 1: of significant mental illness. But I'm curious with respect to Oregon,
Speaker 1: what do you see? Are there going to be significant
Speaker 1: commercial opportunities in Oregon? Is it going to be clinics?
Speaker 1: How is it going to transform the world. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: nobody knows exactly, but there's a lot of money coming
Speaker 1: into Oregon betting hedging that one will get a cultivation license,
Speaker 1: one will get you know, the equivalent of a dispensary
Speaker 1: license or a clinic license. One will get the you know,
Speaker 1: state level no bid contract to train the psychedelic assisted
Speaker 1: you know, therapists or trip sitters or facilitators. The labels
Speaker 1: are changing. But it's all happening like kind of in
Speaker 1: the next year, like those quote unquote rules will be established.
Speaker 1: And what's even more fathoming um is when I'm in
Speaker 1: meetings with other legislators or other state leaders or even
Speaker 1: other governments. It's funny. It's like this isn't verbatim, but
Speaker 1: like somebody said, Oregon, what we're a bigger state. When's
Speaker 1: the deadline. Let's beat him to the punch. And then
Speaker 1: as we got into it, they realized, no, it's not cannabis.
Speaker 1: Two point Oh, I'm guessing most of it as it
Speaker 1: rolls out. Um, in Oregon and other states and other
Speaker 1: other jurisdictions, will WILL WILL have a component of assistant therapy. Um.
Speaker 1: How exactly that looks, no one knows exactly. But um,
Speaker 1: it's a very open group, all the leadership, all the
Speaker 1: different subcommittees. I mean, you can jump on a zoom
Speaker 1: anytime and like watch it. You know, this living breathing
Speaker 1: revolution in the sense of granting psychedelics to you know,
Speaker 1: constituents or citizens of that state kind of happen overnight. Um.
Speaker 1: The other bullet point, or the last bullet point, which
Speaker 1: might kind of up end it all, is this prevalence
Speaker 1: of micro dosing and will a regulatory body, will the
Speaker 1: powers that be allow that to happen? And might that
Speaker 1: be kind of an opening of the floodgates where yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a little psychedelic in this, but it's safe and
Speaker 1: it's sub perceptual and as long as you you know,
Speaker 1: you don't take the whole bottle or the whole tab
Speaker 1: or you know, now you have this great technology that's
Speaker 1: able to dose you via a patch or an implant
Speaker 1: or something else. Might that jump ahead of everything else? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean, if you think about it, right, I
Speaker 1: mean people talk about, you know, basically the pharmaceutical industry
Speaker 1: confirming a fundamental challenge because if in fact, these psychedelics
Speaker 1: and m d m A turn out to be as
Speaker 1: efficacious in dealing with all forms of mental illness as
Speaker 1: the promise suggests, it means that people who have been
Speaker 1: taking daily antidepressants, anti daily anti anxiety drugs, daily, this
Speaker 1: and that, for which you know, insurance companies are paying
Speaker 1: billions of dollars, and pharmacutic companies are making billions or
Speaker 1: tens of billions of dollars. Now people are going to
Speaker 1: be getting better sometimes by using a substance just once
Speaker 1: or five or ten or twenty times in a therapeutic context,
Speaker 1: which means that the amount of money that can be
Speaker 1: made from that these are not repeat drugs. Essentially, So
Speaker 1: the question becomes, I mean, first of all, are these
Speaker 1: new molecules are gonna be able to charge a fortune
Speaker 1: for these things? You know? B is the micro dose
Speaker 1: thing going to be the one that opens up where
Speaker 1: you know, these things become widely consumed products, and and
Speaker 1: that's where're gonna be the big money or is the
Speaker 1: truly big money gonna be about providing the clinics and
Speaker 1: the therapists and the standard certification and the support services
Speaker 1: and the retreats. Five ten years from now, you will
Speaker 1: see everything you mentioned have a roll um. If someone
Speaker 1: you know cures themselves or at least lessons, whatever their
Speaker 1: indication is, there could always be a continuation of whatever
Speaker 1: the molecule is, either sub or quarterly or annually. But
Speaker 1: you know, humanity likes to have, you know, a single
Speaker 1: experience that makes them feel good, but then you know,
Speaker 1: kind of support along the way. As far as clinics retreats,
Speaker 1: we're not doing any of those right now from the fund,
Speaker 1: not that we don't believe in them or think there's
Speaker 1: a great value there. But there will be an interesting
Speaker 1: you know, I'm already starting to see it in some
Speaker 1: ketamine roll ups where once these drugs, which is where
Speaker 1: it's all starting from our legal um, and they've gone
Speaker 1: through their trials and they're reimbursable, will there be the
Speaker 1: need for clinics outside of a hospital. UM. And that's
Speaker 1: where your last question about psychotherapy is a really important one,
Speaker 1: because the presumption right now is at least the way
Speaker 1: the laws are being written is including the psychedelic assistant therapy.
Speaker 1: So I think that component is still going to stay there,
Speaker 1: and that will afford the continual scaling of you know,
Speaker 1: these retreats and these clinics. UM. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I answer to your question or just created a hundred
Speaker 1: more questions. No, I mean you sort of did, and yes,
Speaker 1: and you did create a hundred more. But you know,
Speaker 1: in THEA, which like Maps, is trying to figure out
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible how to get the big insurance
Speaker 1: companies and public health insurance to cover psychedelic assisted therapy,
Speaker 1: I think in the way that some of the Kenemy
Speaker 1: treatment is now being covered, and so obviously that seems
Speaker 1: pivotal because that's the potential source of billions and billions
Speaker 1: of dollars coming in to pay for all sorts of
Speaker 1: you know, psychedelic related stuff. Do you have any insights
Speaker 1: about how likely and how fast it is to happen.
Speaker 1: It's definitely a matter of when, not if, UM, I
Speaker 1: mean it's already happening with ketamine right. You know, even
Speaker 1: when I had my dispensary, I figured out how to
Speaker 1: code things to reimburse some of my patients under prop
Speaker 1: to fifteen, almost complete reimbursability. So I do think it's
Speaker 1: a matter of when, not if, for that around psychedelics,
Speaker 1: because you know, at least in an THEA who you
Speaker 1: had named, who's an amazing organization, they're doing it very smart,
Speaker 1: very tactfully. And as these drugs come into market, you
Speaker 1: know they'll be the ones who have set up the
Speaker 1: right infrastructure and have played by the right rules and
Speaker 1: have really listened. You know that you even mentioning ketamine
Speaker 1: right here. You know. One of those speakers at the
Speaker 1: Horizons conference, so I thought he had a great talk
Speaker 1: was one of the leading ken amine therapist, Dr Gidabad,
Speaker 1: And part of her speech was this pointing out that
Speaker 1: some people think ketamine is just going to be a placeholder,
Speaker 1: that it's not the real psychedelic um once all these
Speaker 1: other types of psilocybin and m d M A center
Speaker 1: stuff submerged. And she says, no, that's not going to
Speaker 1: be the case. And so I'm curious, I mean, do
Speaker 1: you agree with her. Is kenemine just gonna keep growing,
Speaker 1: notwithstanding what happens on the n d M A and
Speaker 1: psilocybin and other fronts, And does it provide a model
Speaker 1: for the way these other things are going to evolve?
Speaker 1: On the latter question, it absolutely provides a model, because
Speaker 1: it's already happening, right, I mean right now if you
Speaker 1: go to academy clinic, not the majority, but several are
Speaker 1: the ones I've worked with are able to fully reimburse.
Speaker 1: And you know, personally, a few years ago, I got
Speaker 1: lime disease, and you know, basically it was in bed
Speaker 1: for a year, just totally knocked out. Then I experienced apathy.
Speaker 1: And apathy is the time like I would wake up
Speaker 1: and I would not care about anything. I was like,
Speaker 1: I remember waking up one day and going like, God,
Speaker 1: I wish I cared enough even to commit suicide. It
Speaker 1: was like nothing mattered, right, It's horrible, And it was
Speaker 1: coming up on a holiday. So I called the you know,
Speaker 1: the doctor who's also my GP that I helped set
Speaker 1: up some of the first ketamine clinics, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll be in town. You want to, you know,
Speaker 1: grab a pointer let's meet up. And he's like absolutely,
Speaker 1: and he's like, how's your how's your line? And I'm like, honestly,
Speaker 1: I got this this apathy thing. Um. He's like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: I'm booking you for a Monday, Wednesday, Friday session. Over
Speaker 1: the holidays offices are closed, but you know, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna do you full I V And that next Saturday,
Speaker 1: the apathy was completely gone. I was blown away, having
Speaker 1: you know, explored ketamine for other things, and certainly having
Speaker 1: spent time, you know, in the club world, was pretty
Speaker 1: familiar with the effects of it. Um. I just had
Speaker 1: never did for an indication I had. It was magical
Speaker 1: and I don't know, like I didn't try m D
Speaker 1: m A, I didn't try psilocybin, I didn't try anything else.
Speaker 1: It was just a doctor who said, listen, I think
Speaker 1: this could work for you. And I'm like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: worst cases, I'll get to hang out in the ca
Speaker 1: hole for three days this Thanksgiving week. UM. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think. I think every molecule has its place
Speaker 1: based on the indication and then based on you know,
Speaker 1: the other huge trend which I don't think we've talked about,
Speaker 1: which is you know, precision medicine, and just the fact
Speaker 1: that we're getting really close to being able to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is your thing based on this algorithm or this
Speaker 1: machine learning algorithm, this is the drug you need, and
Speaker 1: this is the therapy you need. So that's going to
Speaker 1: be pretty revolutionary in the next few years as well,
Speaker 1: which will basically ameliorate this whole is one better than
Speaker 1: the other, well, one might be better than the other
Speaker 1: based on who you are as a human and being
Speaker 1: your genetic profile, your how your brain talks to your gut,
Speaker 1: the whole set setting in matrix. But I don't think
Speaker 1: these others are going to replace ketamine or vice versa.
Speaker 1: But let me take you where you were going right there,
Speaker 1: which is looking the future. And you sad this earlier on.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not just going to be about psychedelics
Speaker 1: and mental health. It's gonna be about psychedelics and other
Speaker 1: types of health and looking at the component elements of
Speaker 1: the molecules within psychedelics. And so I'm curious, I mean,
Speaker 1: and when you're talking about these other things about greater
Speaker 1: specificity and targeting of disease, and what's the relationship between
Speaker 1: you know, this rapid evolution with psychedelics and uh, these
Speaker 1: broader areas of medical care, the non mental illness conditions.
Speaker 1: There's so much anecdotal information. There's a few companies working
Speaker 1: on it right now, um that are preclinical. Um, well
Speaker 1: that's not true. Not all are preclinical, but there's a
Speaker 1: lot that are pre clinical who are not focusing on
Speaker 1: the narrow of mental health. They're focusing on inflammation, they're
Speaker 1: focusing on brain degenerative disorders, they're focusing on um general health.
Speaker 1: And that's going to be a big narrative as we're
Speaker 1: able to test that these molecules also help with CNS disorders, UM, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't have the same prominence as quote unquote
Speaker 1: mental health has because you know, again my argument that
Speaker 1: it's the human condition. Um, everybody is dealing with some
Speaker 1: some level, some severe, uh some barely even noticeable, but
Speaker 1: could be optimized mental health issue. So it's mid December,
Speaker 1: December fifte and I was just checking out some of
Speaker 1: these biggest companies and looking at their stock prices, and
Speaker 1: just this week some of the biggest ones, I think
Speaker 1: a tie which is like the eight pound guerilla of
Speaker 1: psycholic investment funds and Compass that we were talking about,
Speaker 1: and I think a few others, like the stock prices
Speaker 1: dive bonb this week. You know, what was that about?
Speaker 1: Is it just a blip? Are we gonna keep seeing
Speaker 1: these kind of things, or what's your take on it?
Speaker 1: I think today was a combination of you know, today
Speaker 1: was a significant day. Like you had mentioned a tie.
Speaker 1: You know, it was very interesting that the first you know,
Speaker 1: press release was about founders signing a voluntary uh memo
Speaker 1: saying they would stay in lock up another twenty four months.
Speaker 1: Just explain stay in lock up to our audience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: lock up is you know, in so many of these companies,
Speaker 1: the ones you're seeing in public markets, they were in
Speaker 1: most cases almost unanimously private companies. And when you invest
Speaker 1: in a private company, um, because you're early, you're locked up.
Speaker 1: Like even if the company goes public, you can't sell
Speaker 1: your shares um And that has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with compliance and SEC and other regulatory bodies. And that's
Speaker 1: almost always true of the founders, right or anyone who's director,
Speaker 1: you're they cannot sell their shares until a certain lock
Speaker 1: up period expires. And this isn't just psychedelics, This is
Speaker 1: any industry. But you know, there's a lot of retail investors,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of institutional investors who are like, well,
Speaker 1: does the management believe in this company? And I think
Speaker 1: that was the ovation that came out of a tie
Speaker 1: this morning that they do and they're going to hold
Speaker 1: for another two years and not sell a single share.
Speaker 1: In theory, I mean, there's you could definitely deconstruct the
Speaker 1: memo and see that there's ways to get out of that,
Speaker 1: but um, that was the narrative they lead with. Now
Speaker 1: why it dipped in value, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: that had to do with the fact that a lot
Speaker 1: of lock ups expired today and a lot of people
Speaker 1: wanted to take their gains or not take more losses.
Speaker 1: And that happens in every industry and anything that's public
Speaker 1: from time to time. So I do think this is
Speaker 1: a blip. It's also hard to argue that it's something
Speaker 1: other than that, because how much data do we have
Speaker 1: if we call it, you know, psychedelic public markets, we
Speaker 1: have what a couple of years of it. You're gonna
Speaker 1: look to see n s, You're gonna look at biotech
Speaker 1: to try and to correlate it, but it's still too
Speaker 1: early to really qualify if this is like the future,
Speaker 1: just because today was a sell off day for for
Speaker 1: some on the flip side. I can show you, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: four seventeen other stocks that all rose by ten to
Speaker 1: in psychedelics did I don't do. I don't really have
Speaker 1: the bandwidth to day trade I wish. UM. I mean,
Speaker 1: we definitely watch it for sentiment, but we're focused on
Speaker 1: private companies. We're usually like seed to a so often
Speaker 1: you know, well before there's a liquidity event, which is
Speaker 1: often okay, hey it's liquid, there's money, it's it's now
Speaker 1: it's public and it's on the nastact that kind of narrative. Um.
Speaker 1: But we don't focus on on public companies in the
Speaker 1: fund and way too busy just talking to founders and
Speaker 1: going through decks and helping strategize to uh to be
Speaker 1: a day trader. But if I did, today would have
Speaker 1: been the day to do. You know. I I was
Speaker 1: listening to uh, your colleague Lindsay Hoover being asked, you know,
Speaker 1: how do you figure out what to invest in? And
Speaker 1: she said, well, you know, it's kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: with real estate, it's location, location, location, and when you're
Speaker 1: investing in startups, it's the team, the team, the team.
Speaker 1: Is there more to say beyond that about when you're
Speaker 1: trying to make your choices and who you're gonna put
Speaker 1: money on. Uh No, Lindsay really summed it up clearly,
Speaker 1: obviously more nuanced, but you know, you bet on the
Speaker 1: jockey and not the horse, and there's you know, a
Speaker 1: million business metaphors to it. But yeah, we always start
Speaker 1: with the team. Sometimes we'll see some amazing I p
Speaker 1: or an amazing novel novelty and go to market strategy
Speaker 1: that doesn't have the team yet. Um, so we'll do
Speaker 1: some matchmaking, but we always like to start with the
Speaker 1: people and the humans who you know, we're entrusting, you know,
Speaker 1: our limited partners money to make them a return and
Speaker 1: or we're entrusting them to do the right thing. And
Speaker 1: that's that's never going to be an algorithm quite yet.
Speaker 1: Um maybe in a year we'll dow it all out,
Speaker 1: but uh yeah, team is you know, it's the people.
Speaker 1: That's still the world we live in. So we always
Speaker 1: start with the team. Yeah, you know, I seeming I
Speaker 1: saw you Cuote. I don't know if you're quoting somebody
Speaker 1: else or making this up to yourself when you say
Speaker 1: something like we're in the business of medicalizing the mystical um,
Speaker 1: and I guess that's as we make clear, that's not
Speaker 1: all of it. Well, listen to Seeming. I'm grateful to
Speaker 1: Leonard Picard's for introducing us, and it's a pleasure getting
Speaker 1: to know you. I look forward to many more and
Speaker 1: also the great success of your Jails fund. So thank
Speaker 1: you ever so much for joining me and our Psychoactive
Speaker 1: listeners today. It's my absolute pleasure. Ethan, thank you as well.
Speaker 1: Have a great rest of your night. Join me next
Speaker 1: week when I speak with Cirston Smith, a research or
Speaker 1: at the National Institute on Drug Abuse who's been studying creatum,
Speaker 1: the fascinating drug out of Southeast Asia which millions of
Speaker 1: Americans are now using to deal with drug dependencies, pain,
Speaker 1: or simply to improve their mood. You know, if I
Speaker 1: didn't think creatum was going to be relevant, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be sitting here talking to you. I mean relevant on
Speaker 1: many different levels, both creating products, proliferating in real world
Speaker 1: studying therapeutics such that there's like a medicinal creatum situation
Speaker 1: going on. Similar to cannabis again. You know it's not
Speaker 1: even my gut. If I thought it was not helping people,
Speaker 1: I would be working on something else. Subscribe to Psychoactive now,
Speaker 1: see it, don't miss it. If you'd like to share
Speaker 1: your own stories, comments or ideas, please leave us a
Speaker 1: message at eight three three seven seven nine sixty. That's
Speaker 1: one eight three three psycho zero. You can also email
Speaker 1: us at Psychoactive of at protozoa dot com, or find
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Ethan Nadelman. And if you couldn't
Speaker 1: keep track of all this, find the information in the
Speaker 1: show notes. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me Ethan Nadelman. It's
Speaker 1: produced by Katcha Kumkova and Ben Kibrick. The executive producers
Speaker 1: are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronovski
Speaker 1: for Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick for I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and me Ethan Naedelman. Our music is by
Speaker 1: Ari Belusian and a special thanks to a vi Vit Brio,
Speaker 1: Seph Bianca Grimshaw and Robert Beatty,